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Orlando Delivers

Written by Sarah Hays and Terry Howard

 

On the road to Augsburg, late May 1636

"Stare allerta!" the caravan lookout cried, as bandits boiled out of ravines on either side of the trail. "We are attacked! Robbers! Bandits!"

Orlando Rosales glanced first one way then the other. Neither direction offered escape; ahead of him lay just over half the caravan, behind him the rest. The bandits would arrive before he could get away. From the left he counted four; from the right half a dozen, but those had twice as far to run before they reached him. He concentrated on the nearer group, hearing his father's voice in his memory.

"When the bandits come, run. When you cannot run, fight." As a pair of the caravanner's hired guards stepped up to block the oncoming foursome, Orlando listened to his father's remembered voice : "Fight just long enough to get away, son."

The caravan guards' advance delayed the four brigands. Orlando's wheel-lock pistol, steadied over the back of his donkey, went off in a blast of choking smoke; he never knew whether he hit the man he'd aimed at or not. He pocketed the empty pistol, out of habit, on the saddle and drew his rapier.

The thickest smoke didn't so much clear as split open, showing him an oncoming giant bearing a club raised overhead in both hands. If it connected, Orlando had no doubt he'd be driven into the ground.

"Hell," said his father, Adolfo, in his memory, "needs fuel, son. That's why Adonai made so many Gentiles. When all you can do is die, an angel will guide you home. Take as many of the sons of dogs with you as you can, eh?"

Adolfo, three years ago, had taken four with him.

"I guess it's my turn to see what an angel looks like, Papa," the young Jew murmured, stepping quickly forward inside the blow and turning sideways to meet his foe.

The club came whistling down, but by the time it landed Orlando's head had moved. The blow glanced off its moving target, striking instead the top of his shoulder, driving him to his knees. Orlando thrust the blade of his rapier before him as he fell. It went through his opponent's belly.

With a cry he fell, his heavy body covering Orlando from view. His club hit Orlando's thigh with all his weight behind it. But Orlando didn't feel the pain; he wouldn't know about that injury, or the slice above his ear, or his dislocated shoulder, until he could be wakened. First the caravan guards had to drive off the rest of the brigands, then they had to find Orlando. Then they had to figure out he hadn't been killed, and get the body of the bandit off him.

Then they had to wait for him to wake up.

****

"Tell Jano he's coming around."

Orlando opened his eyes. Above him stood the owner of the caravan he had joined to cross the Alps. Hostility and anger boiled off a man usually noted as tranquil and uncommonly reasonable. "What did you have on your ass," he demanded, "that got three of my men killed?"

"What?" Orlando asked, puzzled.

"Three of my men are dead. Once the bandits made off with your ass they fled," Jano snarled. "What were you carrying? Gold? Gems? Had you mentioned valuables I would have charged you for extra guards. Now your treasure is gone, three of my men are dead and seven more wounded, and it's all your fault! What did you have?"

"A book."

"A book? Was it covered in gold and studded with gemstones?"

Orlando started to shake his head. Pain stopped him. He started to shrug. Pain stopped him. He settled for speaking softly: "A rich man, an American up-timer in Augsburg, just bought this book from a dealer in Venice. I'm delivering it."

"You're hand-carrying a book to Augsburg, from Italy?" Jano began to yell. "You do not hand-deliver just a book!"

Orlando protested, "It is just a book. In the up-timers' world something happened to make this book special. Now, here, it is just a book—a beautiful book, and one of a kind, but nothing more."

The caravan master's jaw worked. "So much trouble for just a book?"

"Well," Orlando conceded, "Some people screamed bloody murder because the dealer sold it to a Gentile." He didn't add many others had screamed the book should be destroyed, nor how the Doge of Venice had what he believed to be the original safely deposited in his library. Orlando doubted the notion of abomination and blasphemy as surely as he knew the Doge possessed only a copy. "At least two or three cardinals want it. A dozen more people would want it if they knew about it."

"So you brought this book on my caravan?" Then he glanced at the man treating Orlando's wounds. "How is it?"

The man laughed. "He's not cut. Just one whopper of a bruise."

"Can he walk?" the caravan master asked.

"Sure, he can walk. It's going to be very sore and he might limp, but not much."

Glancing back to Orlando, the caravan master said, "I've got all the injured I can carry. Walk, or stay here."

Before the caravan master could stalk off, the guards' captain came up on a horse. Jano shifted his gaze to this target. "Yes?"

"You're right," the man said flatly. "Alfredo's band attacked us. But you knew to watch for them, when you didn't find his man waiting in the usual place to be paid off. The party with the ass went one way, the rest of the band another. I got a good look at them going over the ridgeline, Alfredo bringing up the rear."

"I hoped he'd retired." Jano sighed. "Move out. We've got lost time to make up for."

The guard looking at Orlando's thigh helped pull him up. "Here," the fellow said, handing Orlando the club, "you'll need a walking stick. If I was you I'd keep the thing as a good luck charm."

 

Somewhere in an Alpine pass, a few days later

Orlando sighed, sliding from his saddle. He slipped his mule's bit to let the beast drink, and stepped upstream to dip a pan into the water for himself. Orlando hadn't stayed with Jano's caravan. He wanted to follow the thieves' trail in its freshest hours. He bought a pair of horses from the guards, and took off on an overpriced horse in his travel-worn boots. When his horses wore out, he'd traded for a mule and the other supplies he'd need to travel light. He'd no idea where this trail might lead; a mule did much better over rough ground than a horse.

Orlando glanced at the sky and saw three stars, marking the official start of the Sabbath. He whispered a promise to say a prayer later and spoke to the mule.

"At least you can rest awhile." He hobbled it to graze while he made himself a meal. Not bothering with a large open fire, he struck a spark from flint-and-steel and teased the frayed edge of charred rag wick in the little brass lamp he had purchased at the caravansary to flame.

While he waited for the water to boil he murmured a prayer. Once the water boiled he divided it, leaving a little in the pan to keep warm against the needs of washing-up.

Orlando finished his meal then cleaned and packed away his gear, and glanced at the moon. Perhaps an hour had elapsed since he'd set the mule to graze. He wanted to give the sentry, if his quarry had set such a precaution, about that much longer to grow inattentive. He opened his saddlebag and drew out his cloak, turned its darker lining to the outside, and wrapped it around himself. He slipped off his boots to rest his stocking-feet among rocks still warm from the cooking lamp.

Some time later he woke, feet now cold. A glance at the moon showed he'd slept longer than he'd meant to; but the night's clear sky provided enough visibility to find the mule. He undid the hobbles, replaced his saddle, and convinced the mule to accept the bit so he could lead his mount as he approached his target.

****

So, they'd posted a sentry. But Orlando's patience paid off: the man leaned against a tree, head on his chest, softly snoring. Orlando looped the mule's rein over a branch. He crept quietly round where the four travelers' horses had been tied up for the night, and carefully slipped the long rope looped through all their headstalls from its moorings. He'd hoped to find his ass on this picket line, to no avail. Orlando led the picket string down to the creek, pulled off all their tack, and left them to graze or roam as they pleased. Within a quarter hour he'd deprived the horses' riders of their use and come back to the camp where the sentry still sat, fast asleep.

Orlando studied the fire-lit circle. The sentry's blanket lay empty on the fire's far side; beside it he could see another, snugly wrapped over a slim shape. No packages there; the sleeper nearest him had similarly taken full advantage of his meager bedding. The fourth form sprawled, half-on, half-under, a cloak instead of a blanket. He turned to the saddles; the first boasted no bags at all, but a pouch looped over the horn, too small for the prize Orlando sought. The second lacked even so little room for cargo. The third bore a bundle.

Slipping quietly around the camp, Orlando reached the saddle and cut the thin leather string holding the bundle, slipped the covering off, and grinned. A moment later he'd secured it across his back; another moment sufficed to ensure he left nothing valuable on the last saddle.

Orlando slipped away, worked his way quietly back to the mule, and departed in the moonlight, thoroughly pleased. He walked a hundred paces before he swung into the saddle.

Not wanting to attempt the passage over the mountains alone, Orlando turned back. Picking up another caravan or even returning to Venice seemed like a good idea. He did not wish to make another mistake; his last had nearly ended up killing him. He'd stolen back his book from people who'd already shown themselves ready to risk life, limb or prison.

The moon set; beneath his saddle the mule slowed, not out of a normal reluctance to work but genuine weariness. Orlando took stock of his surroundings. Half a mile behind him the trail he rode clung to the edge of the mountain like a burr to a homespun stocking; before him, it narrowed.

On his right the slope spun down steeply into blackness. To his left a fold in the face of the stones led upward. Orlando slid out of his saddle and cinched the strings of his prize more tightly, then led the mule into the defile. A couple of mule-lengths from the trail, he looped the rein over a stubby branch, turning back to check for tracks. With a wisp of brush he erased the marks of his passage away from the well-traveled route. Presently the mule began to reach toward nearby graze.

"It's too soon. Come on," Orlando said, and led the mule upward again. When he could see over the peak, at least partially, he drew a breath. No one, canny soldiers of fortune or otherwise, waited there. A boulder twice his height marked the shoulder of the slope; he circled it, silently, one careful step at a time. No one waited on the far side. The view he had from here, of the valley below and the trail across it, would take a man's breath away in daylight, Orlando thought. By starlight, he could tell only that so far, at least, he and the mule had the place to themselves . . . except for the wildlife.

The boulder sheltered a hollow a little wider than Orlando's outstretched arms, perhaps twice as tall as a man on muleback; from the hillside wall ran a fast trickle of water, collecting where it had worn away the stone. Overhead a sleepy-sounding bird complained as Orlando led the mule into the space, but finding them harmless, subsided. Past the crevice between boulder and mountainside, a little hollow opened toward the stars; it might reach twenty feet long and half again as wide, its walls barely less than straight-up cliffs. Knee-deep grass covered its floor.

Orlando hobbled the mule, parked himself in the narrowest part of the entryway, unrolled his cloak and murmured a lengthy and apologetic prayer.

****

Twelve days and nights of similar travel, daring difficult passages to avoid roads where ambushes could be set, ensued. Orlando came to think of the mule with some affection; it proved a faithful beast of burden, if not a companionable one. Seeing the valley below, Orlando understood why the longer, steeper, less traveled route existed.

"Well," he told the mule. "A few hours more, and you'll have a stall, with water and grain and somebody to brush you. A bit of luck and you might even get to stay there three or four nights, eh?" The mule, after the manner of its kind, did not answer. Fallow fields, vacant towns and weathered bones, presumably left by plague, explained the empty trail. Orlando rode onward. "Might be I've mistaken our chances," he told the mule. "We could have to do without a stall or bed again tonight."

Crossing two more ridges, he left the devastated valley behind before coming to a run-down inn.

"A Jew's money spends as well as a Gentile's," the gray, work-worn host said flatly. "I'd as lief take yours as not. Custom's not easy come by, lad. My business has been slow since the last full moon."

Curiously, Orlando said, "What makes you think I'm a Jew?"

"Cut of your clothes, boy," the man lied. The tale of the Jew with golden book full of treasure maps, worth a fortune to any prince of the true church, had made its way even here. "Either you're a Jew or you stole them from a Jew. You don't have the manner of a thief."

Orlando left his mule with the lass in the stable, then trod cautiously inward. A group of young men carried on over bowls of stew and mugs of . . . something . . . passing hunks of dark bread to one another and carving thick slices from a slab of cheese in a platter on the bar.

"Buy an ale, stranger," advised the slightest of the customers. "Bread and cheese come with."

"All right."

The crowd studied him a little more carefully after he let a small coin fall on the bar with a chiming sound. A woman who might've been the innkeeper's wife—or sister—picked up the coin. "Help yourself," she said, handing him a bowl. "Stew's on the hearth. I'll bring your ale to your table."

He nodded, and then used his dagger on the cheese. He cut a triangular slice, broke it in half and tucked it into his bowl. The stew had onions, garlic, and bits of something green in the gravy with the long-cooked, soft white beans. Orlando tore half his fist-sized hunk of bread into bits and stirred them in.

The woman brought him a wooden mug. Cautiously, he sipped; the taste ran like fire down his throat. He ate, sipping as he went, rationing his bread to match the drink and stew, until bowl and mug held no more. Then he set his dishes down.

"Thanks," he murmured to the stable-girl, now waiting on his table. She dimpled at him, a child of ten or maybe twelve.

"Welcome," she said. "The mule's fed and brushed and watered, like you asked."

"Thanks. Where will I find my night's lodging?"

"Upstairs," she said. "I'm to show you when you're ready. Mika'll see to the others."

"I'm ready now," Orlando said quietly.

The girl led him up a narrow, winding stair to a sturdy planked door, pulled a string and shoved her hip against the edge. One long wall sported three short shelves, ranging up from waist-height; a basin and jug stood on the lowest. The next one up lay bare; the third, not much more than a handsbreadth wide, sported an oil lamp. The girl offered him a candle.

"Haven't had oil for the lamps for a spell, but the chandler down the way sells these cheap," she said. Gravely, Orlando thanked her. "The latch works on a string. You'll need to loop it over this hook if you don't want anyone disturbing you." He nodded, watching her demonstrate. "Now if there's nothing else you need . . . Oh, under the bed's a necessary," she said. "See you downstairs in the morning, then."

With a sketch of a curtsey, she fled. Orlando tied his latchstring tightly.

****

What he wanted most in all the world amounted to a long hot bath and a good night's sleep, but he doubted he'd have either until he'd delivered the book to his cousin's buyer in Augsburg. He finished his prayers, hung his saddlebags from the wall-hook, and considered the bed. It actually didn't have visible bugs writhing in the wrinkles of the blankets; indeed, he couldn't smell anything vile on the bedclothes. He moved the candle for a better examination, ignoring a knock at his door.

"Faith," he murmured to the night. "No bugs at all?" He studied the rest of the room's furnishings: four hooks in the wall by the door, the (for a wonder, empty) necessary vessel under the bed, a curtain he could drop over the window by undoing a string, and what looked for all the world like a washcloth and towel, rolled up neatly on the shelf behind the basin and pitcher. And the pitcher, when he checked, actually held warm water! "Well, well, well," he said tiredly. "I believe I'll have a night's rest, anyhow. A bit of a wash-up won't hurt, either."

Another knock came at the door. Orlando sighed. "What is it?"

"Did you want anything else tonight, Mister?" The voice didn't sound like the stable-maid's, nor the woman who'd brought ale to his table.

"More water, in a bit," he said. "I'll set the pitcher out."

"All right," the voice answered. Orlando grinned. She sounded disappointed.

One of the little pouches in his saddlebags provided him a lump of soap the size and shape of an egg, his razor, and a comb. He lathered the soap, then tackled his ablutions, a hint of a reckless grin on his face as he worked, glad he'd first seen the too-young stable-girl and the too-old crone of a common-room hostess. Otherwise he'd have hoped for a little easy company, perhaps.

Twice Orlando emptied soapy water from the ewer and wrung out the cloth before he felt he'd done his best to clean himself. Wiping out the basin with the rag last, Orlando wound the towel around his waist, knotting it at a catty-cornered fold. It flapped against his thighs, eight inches above his knees. He rinsed the basin, put away his tools, and poured the last of the clean water into his own mug. Then he untied the string to set the pitcher on the landing.

Out of the shadows stepped a girl, her eyes as big as saucers. She wore a shift so thin he could nearly see through it. Not the stable-lass, this girl might have been her sister. Now she asked, "Can I do anything for you?"

"I want more water," Orlando said. "Is there a laundress here?"

"Mika does our washing. Tomorrow is the regular day," the girl said. "Do you want clothes cleaned? I can take them down to her for you."

He bundled his slops and hose into his shirt. "These, then, if you please," he said. "Once they're dry I'll be on my way."

She reached out, running one hand along the muscle of his arm as she took the bundle with the other. "I wish you could stay longer with us."

He laughed gently. "I am a man working for another. My time is not my own, but if it were I might stay . . . with you."

She pulled the clothes against her chest. "I might like that."

He watched her bend to lift the pitcher, the outlines of her body barely hidden by the shift . . . and nearly didn't see the club whistling toward his head. For the next little while things moved very fast. In the room's half-shadows, Orlando didn't recognize the face of the man pushing in, but he couldn't miss the glint of a blade. The thug's rush bore him back beyond the bed, where he could not reach his own sword.

He slammed his own head into the face of the man who'd tried to stab him. With a cry the fellow fell back and dropped the dagger. Orlando did not dare look for it, for the assassin grabbed Orlando's own sword and swung it blindly like a club. It hit nothing but one stone wall of the tiny room; its wielder cursed as the blow reverberated into his hands and arms.

Desperately, Orlando yanked the curtain down from the arrow-slit, swinging the slender pole like a mace on the end of the ragged material; far more by luck than design, the stick struck his attacker in the eye. The man fell toward Orlando, who shifted his grip from the rag to the branch, his motion from a swing to a stab, and drove the end of the curtain rod into the man's eye. A strangled scream followed; Orlando twisted his grip, breaking the stick. The man kept screaming, unable to do more.

Fueled by desperation, Orlando grabbed his fallen sword and turned to face the new flickering light in the doorway. He found himself staring straight at the innkeeper. The startled man held a light, expecting to greet the triumphant young tough from his dining room. He'd depended on his lamp for light to finish Orlando's murder. Now the innkeeper's eyes went wide.

"Please," the man got out, ashen-faced and white-lipped, "please, good sir, I heard a noise and came to see. That's all. I had nothing to do with this. You must believe me."

"Sure. Help me get this—" Orlando kicked the writhing blinded body at his feet. "—out the door to close it. Set the lamp down. You'll need both hands."

The landlord stooped to set down the light. Orlando brought the pommel of his rapier down on the back of the man's head. Still filled with rage and adrenaline, he turned to the girl who'd played the bait. The girl had curled up in a tight ball on the landing, whimpering softly around her thumb.

He jerked a handful of her hair hard; her whimpering ended, replaced with a scream of fear as high-pitched and primal as anything Neanderthals once heard in the caves across the valley. Still she continued to hug her shins tightly with both arms, trying to hang onto the comfort of a fetal ball even though he more than half lifted her from the floor.

She'd played the bait, a knowing accomplice. Had the night's events gone her way she'd have helped murder him. Yet the fear on her face, the total lack of comprehension in her blank blue eyes, her insistence on retreating into a world he could not see, hit him like a torrent off a mountain glacier.

The girl's desirability vanished. He dropped her head. She tucked it against her knees, once again found her thumb, and went back to whimpering.

****

Orlando dressed, collected his things and headed to the stable. He saw not a soul anywhere. He saddled his mule while apologizing and promising it a good long rest as soon as a safe place could be found.

"Wait," said a voice at his back.

Orlando spun, drawing his rapier. At its point stood the lass who'd tended his mule—and by the look of the beast she hadn't done a half-bad job.

"Whatever for?" he asked with some of the viciousness he had directed towards the older girl.

"If you leave now the men who left earlier will ambush you," she said. "That's what they did to my father and brother. Mika is my mother's uncle's widow—when he died she hired my father to run the inn. When we came here to work for her, these men . . . killed my father and my brother. I watched them beat my mother to death outside the kitchen when she tried to stop them raping Luna."

He looked at her. "Luna?"

"My sister," the stable-girl said. "They made her pretend she wants to sleep with you. They planned to kill you while she had you distracted."

"The one who came to my room tonight won't do such things any more," Orlando said calmly. "I'm sorry about your family."

The girl lifted her chin. "Call me Salome. You're Orlando, the Circassian. Right?"

"How do you know my name?"

"I heard them talking about you. Orlando the Circassian and his golden book full of treasure maps."

"Great. That story's probably been told in every caravansary in the Alps by now." Orlando let out a deep sigh. "I won't be able to show my face anywhere."

"If we meet anyone," she said, "best we have some story to tell, that sounds the same no matter which of us they ask. Luna's sick; I'm taking care of her and you're helping us get to my uncle in Innsbruck."

"The truth, as far as it goes. All right, then. My name is Orlando—Orlando ...